Knowing where and how Antarctic penguins, and other seabirds and marine predators, migrate is critical for conservation efforts.

Knowing where and how Antarctic penguins, and other seabirds and marine predators, migrate is critical for conservation efforts. Although electronic tracking devices have helped scientists track marine animals’ migration patterns, the devices can be expensive, invasive for the animal and challenging to retrieve. Scientists have discovered a new and potentially better way to track where penguins go over the winter using forensics.

“You can say, penguins ‘are where they eat,’ because a geochemical signature of their wintering area is imprinted into their feathers,” said LSU Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences Assistant Professor Michael Polito, the lead author of this study that will be published Aug. 9 in Biology Letters.

Chinstrap and Adélie penguins are part of the family of “brush-tailed” penguins named after their approximately 15-inch long, stiff tail feathers. These birds shed all of their feathers after each breeding season and before they migrate to their oceanic wintering grounds. However, their long tail feathers continue to grow well into the winter when penguins are at sea.